“I mighta known to bring a knife instead of this wrench. Should have guessed that, you stupid old man, why do you want to go carrying pipe wrenches when a knife is what you need? Steady in there, doll, we almost got it, don’t give up the ship now, not when we’re this close.”

He finally managed to rip the blanket away from my head. “Oh my, this is bad. Let’s get you out of here.”

He worked frantically, clumsily, on the knots behind my back. The dog looked at me anxiously, then started to lick my face—I was her long-lost puppy found in the nick of time. All the while that Mr. Contreras freed my hands, rubbing some semblance of circulation back into my arms, she kept washing my face.

He was shocked to see me in my underwear, afraid I’d been raped, could hardly take in my assurances that it was just drowning my assailants had been after. Leaning heavily on his shoulder, I let him guide me, half carrying me, back to the road.

“I got some young hotshot here. Some lawyer, he says. Didn’t believe you could really be down here, so he waited at the car. When her royal highness came back from the lake without you, I got kinda worried. Then this snot-nose shows up, says you was going to meet with him at nine and where was you, he can’t wait all day. I know you don’t want me breathing down your neck, doll, but I was there when the guy called, I heard that little friend of yours say they was going to dump you in the marsh, so I made him drive us down here. Me and her highness, you know, I figured we could find the place after you showed it to me on the map and all.”

He went over and over it on the way to the road. Ron Kappelman stood there, leaning on his beat-up Rabbit, whistling lightly, looking at nothing. When he saw the three of us coming he leapt upright and sprinted across the road. He helped Mr. Contreras lift me over the fence and into the backseat of the car. Peppy gave a little bark and shoved past them to push her heavy body next to mine.

“Damn, Warshawski. You miss an appointment, you do it in a big way. What the hell happened to you?”

“You leave her alone, young man, and don’t go talking dirty like that. There’s plenty other words in the English language without going around swearing all the time. I don’t know what your mother would think if she could hear you, but what we gotta do is get this lady to a doctor, get her patched up, then you want to butt your nose in and find out how she got where she was, maybe she’ll feel like talking to you.”

Kappelman stiffened as if to fight back, then realized the futility of it and got into the driver’s seat. I was unconscious before he had the car turned around.